The scientists denounce Greenpeace's opposition to modern crop biotechnology as a "crime against humanity"

An open letter today signed by 100 Nobel Prize Laureates calls upon the anti-technology activist group "Greenpeace to cease and desist in its campaign against Golden Rice specifically, and crops and foods improved through biotechnology in general." The laureates point out that "scientific and regulatory agencies around the world have repeatedly and consistently found crops and foods improved through biotechnology to be as safe as, if not safer than those derived from any other method of production. There has never been a single confirmed case of a negative health outcome for humans or animals from their consumption. Their environmental impacts have been shown repeatedly to be less damaging to the environment, and a boon to global biodiversity."

The laureates specifically demand that Greenpeace stop its attacks on Golden Rice which has been genetically enhanced to produce a vitamin A precursor as a way to prevent millions of deaths and cases of blindness annually in poor countries where the grain is the chief food staple. Vitamin A deficiency causes blindness in between 250,000 and 500,000 children each year, half of whom die within 12 months, according to the World Health Organization. A study by German researchers in 2014 estimated that activist opposition to the deployment of Golden Rice has resulted in the loss of 1.4 million life-years in just India alone.

WE CALL UPON GREENPEACE to cease and desist in its campaign against Golden Rice specifically, and crops and foods improved through biotechnology in general;

WE CALL UPON GOVERNMENTS OF THE WORLD to reject Greenpeace's campaign against Golden Rice specifically, and crops and foods improved through biotechnology in general; and to do everything in their power to oppose Greenpeace's actions and accelerate the access of farmers to all the tools of modern biology, especially seeds improved through biotechnology. Opposition based on emotion and dogma contradicted by data must be stopped.

How many poor people in the world must die before we consider this a "crime against humanity"?

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Dude, they just did it wrong. Socialism done right would work. It’s just that it has never been tried! We have to try it the right way in the U.S. so we can show the world that our politicians are beyond reproach and have crystal balls that perfectly predict the needs of the populace.

Or we could just stick with capitalism. That mechanism works, but it sometimes leads to bad outcomes, and we can’t have bad outcomes ever.

The local rag is printing the press releases concerning the closure, including the laughable claims that the power will be replaced by ‘green’ sources and it won’t cost much. No one at the newspaper is so much as lifting an eyebrow.

When I worked as a nuclear engineer, the Greenpeacers would carry signs that said “Did you know you have X number of critical nuclear reactors running off your shores?” Critical is a scary word to the layperson, of course, except it only means that the same number of neutrons are being produced and consumed. As in, “stable”.

The Progressive ideology is a crime against humanity and the death toll continues to mount.

Here they have the opportunity to put their money where their mouth is and let the Golden Rice flow, possibly ending, or at least helping to reduce, blindness in the world’s most vulnerable populations and they are refusing to support it. A trial for crimes against humanity is more than these vile people deserve (but I will still support having one).

Its one thing to claim that the performance is poor; its another thing that these protest-orgs go out of their way to prevent any testing/development of the product AT ALL, ensuring that making fair comparisons remain impossible.

Its sort of like what urban school systems do with Charters; give them “test runs” so they can’t be accused of being afraid of competition, but ensure that the resulting data are so hopelessly ‘mixed’ that they’re impossible to compare to the larger system.

In India and Sri Lanka in the 80’s “Wonder Rice” was all the rage. Way more yield and easier to grow than the traditional varieties. People were pretty excited about it. I got used to eating the huge-grain rice.

“Golden Rice has been a viable product since 2005, more than ten years later it still has yet to be produced commercially because of Greenpeace et al.”

Asians don’t like yellow rice. They like white rice. Rather than learning this simple lesson the market has taught us, we prefer to rail against Greenpeace, which has little or no influence on the preferences of Asian consumers.

Why do you insist on getting caught up in these manias of Ron’s? This product wouldn’t exist without government funding. It’s not privately, market funded research that brought this product into being. And it’s completely bound up in bureaucratic patent law both of which are looked upon with disapproval by libertarians and other normal people like us. But you and Ron want to throw in with the department of agriculture, Hank Kimball’s old employer, in telling people what’s good for them. You should think carefully about what Ron says before signing on to it. He doesn’t tell you everything.

“When people figure out that golden rice makes their kids not blind their tastes might change.”

Vegetables are a source of the vitamin A necessary to prevent these problems. There are already vegetable markets. There’s been a steady demand in the market for vegetables as long as there have been markets. There are other things than than this rice with vitamin A. If you’re convinced that this rice is the superior product, then invest in it. The potential payoff is enormous. All the rice eaten in Asia.

It’s not just not commercially viable. The reason why so many poor people in countries like India have vitamin A deficiency from eating rice is because it’s dirt cheap; people who are even slightly better off can afford to supplement it with enough vegetables to avoid deficiency. So you can’t charge much of a premium for it and still help the poor, and there’s no market outside the poor and starving (no health benefit for better-off, orange rice is weird). Oh, and the yield isn’t great and it’s not a very good vitamin A source; newer versions kind of work but it’d be hard to get your RDA that way, the 2005 version was awful. Most fatally, it’s patented up the wazoo by about a dozen different big agricultural companies and even though it’s unlikely to ever be profitable, they’re keeping it tightly locked down just in case someone figures out a way to make money from it. They’ve licensed it for humanitarian use in “Low-Income Food-Deficit Countries” because it helps attack anti-GMO activists (according to its creator) – most of those countries can’t even grow rice.

The part about “activist opposition to the deployment of Golden Rice” resulting in “the loss of 1.4 million life-years in just India alone” particularly dishonest. I don’t think India could even legally grow it in 2014 as they weren’t on the LIFDC list back then. They are for now, but that could change – the original trial country the Phillipines isn’t as their GDP was retroactively reassessed.

No, the licensing program is a weapon being used to attack anti-GMO activists. It allows GMO manufacturers to portray opponents of their profitable GMO lines as evil babykillers who’re denying starving kids access to lifesaving golden rice technology that they’re giving away for free, whilst being so restricted as to be useless for actually helping those kids because they don’t want to actually give it away for free just in case there’s money to be made. Very few of the LIFDC countries that are eligible to grow golden rice can grow rice, and imports and exports are not allowed. So until the GMO firms somehow figure out a way to make money from selling golden rice to poor, nutritionally-deprived families it’s locked away behind patents that mean they can’t access it anyway no matter what Greenpeace do.

If anyone is interested, the one charity I still contribute to is Helen Keller International. Their fund raising budget is relatively low and they’re rated pretty good for what they do, things which include distributing vitamin A around the world.

They generally have some vested interest in perpetuating perceived Boogeymen whenever they think a particular misconception is widespread enough. Its the old story of, “THE DEMON LURKING IN YOUR KITCHEN CABINET!! YOUR HOUSEHOLD PRODUCTS ARE SLOWLY KILLING YOU”, updated for the modern day.

But they’ll grant that the science is actually on the side of the pro-GMO side …. once for every 3 scare-stories, maybe. Its their version of ‘even-handedness’. Compared to how they treat climate change, its downright ‘dispassionate & objective’

“But they’ll grant that the science is actually on the side of the pro-GMO side”

But people’s food preferences are not on the pro-GMO side. If they were those who include GMO food in their products would proudly proclaim it on their labels, rather than avoiding the issue. Same with this yellow rice. If consumers wanted it, they would buy it. Isn’t this how Libertarians expect markets to work? Or do scientists have some sort of veto on consumer preferences?

I can’t tell if Bailey is supporting this letter or not, but legal arguments aside, isn’t the moral argument the same as that being pushed against climate-change-deniers? That by opposing X, they’re morally responsible for the consequence of !X?

The GMO science is settled in a far different manner from climate science.

GMO: safe, good for people, good for environment, increased yields and reduced framing land. The only politics involved is back-to-earth primitives like Greenpeace who see all new tech as evil, while happy to live with most old tech.

AGW: the only consensus (which is really just common sense) is that human pollution (CO2, particulates, freon, whatever) affects the environment. What is NOT settled is how much, what timescale, if mitigation is possible, etc; and the politics involved is the worst kind of nanny posturing possible, full of economic illiterates who assume the worst and demand a return to hunter gather society as mitigation.

When was it necessary for a writer to inform you of their personal endorsement (or lack thereof) of the events they report?

That’s like the inverse of Robbyism. Normally people are telling him to STFU and stop saying whether things are “OKAY/NOT OKAY”. Now you’re moaning because you’re not being told what to think?

Isn’t the moral argument the same as that being pushed against climate-change-deniers? That by opposing X, they’re morally responsible for the consequence of !X?

Maybe the form of it has some similarity, but i don’t think they’re comparable for obvious reasons = There is absolutely no doubt that health outcomes would be improved if Golden Rice were more widely available. The negative consequences are real and tangible.

By contrast = climate change “critics” (*deniers is a scare-word which attempts to associate AGW with the holocaust, which insults people’s intelligence) aren’t responsible for ANY outcomes whatsoever regardless of whatever policies they stymie.

Because even if you assume the worst forecasts of Catestrophic AGW are true…. there’s absolutely no action, no matter how drastic that any government on earth could take that would have any effect on climate outcomes whatsoever. Even if the US and EU cut their emissions to Zero overnight, China et al’s future output would still make that effectively meaningless.

When was it necessary for a writer to inform you of their personal endorsement (or lack thereof) of the events they report? It’s not. But with how often people ’round here assume that reporting on something means supporting something, a disclaimer that I wasn’t making that assumption seems prudent.

As to the rest… you’re arguing the specifics of the cases. You are, of course, free to do so, but I was not and don’t intend to.

Actually the opposite is more frequently the case = people get irritated by the injection of “value judgement” when its completely unnecessary.

you’re arguing the specifics of the cases.

i’m pointing out its a stupid comparison. the consequences in one scenario are predictable, immediate and tangible; there are in fact “no consequences” of the other scenario you suggest because no policy would have any material effect regardless.

Why do these Nobel laureates not see that this is part of the plan.By banning G.M.O.’s,D.D.T. ,oil,gas and coal the brown hoards will die off in large numbers.Throw in Melinda Gates and her birth control crusade and you have the perfect way of eliminating the unwashed masses.It’s a better plan then ‘he who can not be named’.

In fairness, DDT has reduced effectiveness for every generation of ‘bugger’ that is exposed to it.

Of course, if it hasn’t ever been used over there it would still retain the same potency there that it had in the U.S. during the heyday of it’s use. So, probably a good idea to give them at least a little respite from their current disease hole.

Greenpeace’s anti-nuclear crusade is one of the biggest the reasons why we have a CO2 problem today. If we continued on the path we were on and achieved the same percentage of nuclear as France, we would have less than half the CO2 emissions from power production.

If people want it badly enough, they will find a way and they will pay. Folks in the cocaine trade have it a lot tougher than the yellow rice people and they’ve managed to deliver for decades. That’s how markets work. When you try to introduce a product nobody is demanding, the market punishes you. Then you plant sob stories in the right wing press.

If the little people have to decide on anything, let it be on a way to make vitamin A rich vegetables a more accessible dietary choice.

mtrueman|6.30.16 @ 12:02AM|# “When you try to introduce a product nobody is demanding, the market punishes you. Then you plant sob stories in the right wing press. plant sob stories in the right wing press.” It would be nice to have that product introduced; we might find out whether it is in demand rather than lefty assholes (as you identify yourself) telling us it won’t be in demand. Right, lefty asshole?

“If the little people have to decide on anything, let it be on a way to make vitamin A rich vegetables a more accessible dietary choice.” So lefty assholes have decided the ‘little people’ have to get their nutrition the way lefty assholes choose? Were you born a lefty asshole or did it take you long years of study to become one?

It’s not and it never has been. But with government funding, that’s the beauty. It doesn’t have to be. They’ll keep pushing because they know better. You are the leftist here. Even if you don’t eat vegetables on principle.

I’m not against profits or I wouldn’t be here, but when you’re talking about a technology as a vehicle for saving human lives who also happen to be some of the most abjectly poor people in the world, yeah it starts to actually matter if you need to rebuy your entire seed crop every year. Especially since, presumably, you are eating the fruits of your labor and not selling it.

Obviously, you could just give them the seeds every year. I don’t really care one way or the other necessarily, but since the point of the article seems to revolve around helping poor people perhaps that would be a salient point to mention.

Hence, why I included it.

I would naturally conclude that a group of people who are literally starving to death, or dying from malnutrition, might be the exact sort of people who would save seed. ‘Organic Luddites’ doesn’t really apply when you would happily eat anything. These aren’t Oregon Hipsters we’re talking about here, are they?

There are quite a few charities who spend their time helping poor people cultivate crops. I have no doubt that they would include Golden Rice in their repertoire if they weren’t painted as knuckle-dragging savages (the irony, it burns) for doing so.

BYODB|6.29.16 @ 2:27PM|# “I’m not against profits or I wouldn’t be here, but when you’re talking about a technology as a vehicle for saving human lives who also happen to be some of the most abjectly poor people in the world, yeah it starts to actually matter if you need to rebuy your entire seed crop every year.”

“That’s blood on the hands of Greenpeace and the organizations they mobilize for support, not to mention Deniers for Hire like SourceWatch and US Right To Know who use their dark money funding to attack farmers and scientists.”http://acsh.org/news/2016/06/2…..lden-rice/

The laureates specifically demand that Greenpeace stop its attacks on Golden Rice[…]

Oh, for fuck’s sake. What is it about the green movement you don’t understand, all of you ‘Nobel laureates’?

The raison d’etre of the current green movement is to JUSTIFY the ABJECT POVERTY that Socialism creates everywhere it is implemented, as a FEATURE and not a BUG.

Since the Marxian promise of abundance NEVER materialized, Socialists now want to peddle their idea as some sort of sacrifice to the god of nature. In essence you have a juxtaposition of socialism and paganism, which proselytizes on the basis of self-sacrifice in the name of saving Nature from humans, but it is all a big scam to impose socialism without the disappointments.

Because they look down their nose at the rest of humanity as cattle in need of caretaking, which conveniently necessitates giving geniuses like them god-like authority. Modern leftism is custom-made to appeal to the frustrated vanity of the speculative intellectual and theorist.